She gets it

Tom and I frequently marvel at how much Alice seems to understand about what's going on around her. It's probably a common experience for parents of toddlers, stumbling on just how much their child understands about the world from one day to the next.

A perfect example was Alice's comment on the way home in the car yesterday evening. In the front seat I was relating to Tom a colleague's child's recent questions about God. My friend's four year old had asked, "If God is everywhere, does that mean he's in my armpit?" Tom and I paused to think about the theological implications of the question...

From the backseat Alice piped up, "Jesus in my shoe!"

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 The other night I was singing her "Peace Like a River" at bedtime. I was making my way through the verse, "I've got love like an ocean in my soul..." when Alice stopped nursing to comment, "Ocean beach water. Ocean beach water?" 

Yes, the ocean is the same thing as the water at the beach, I confirmed. 

"I got water in my soul?" Alice asked. "In my soul?"

At least she didn't go on to ask what the soul is.

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Today I started to put a blue wool jumper over her head that she hasn't worn since last spring. "Mommy knit this sweater Alice," she said, correctly.

This evening when we were playing she looked over at my feet and commented, "Mommy knitted Mommy socks." In fact, I hadn't, but they indeed were more like hand-knit socks--variegated, textured, thicker--than the regular machine-made socks I wear. I don't think Alice has ever seen me knitting socks. (I don't do it often.) How did she know they are among those things that are hand-knit, and that this particular pair was a  plausible handknit?

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Today I was looking back at this post about Alice's mispronunciations and realized with some regret that she has corrected all of them. The kid not only speaks clearly, she now uses words like hangnail,  meerkat, and actually. It won't be long until she follows in the footsteps of Edith and Desi and gets started on her dissertation.